Page 143 of The Pillars of the Earth

William stopped and, after a moment, sheathed his knife.

Waleran came into the hall. Another priest followed him and shut the door behind him: Dean Baldwin.

Father said: “I’m surprised to see you, Bishop.”

“Because last time we met, you induced the prior of Kingsbridge to double-cross me? Yes, I suppose you would be surprised. I’m not normally a forgiving man.” He turned his icy gaze on William again for a moment, then looked back at Father. “But I don’t bear a grudge when it’s against my interest. We need to talk.”

Father nodded thoughtfully. “You’d better come upstairs. You too, William.”

Bishop Waleran and Dean Baldwin climbed the stairs to the earl’s quarters, and William followed. He felt let down because the cat had escaped. On the other hand, he realized that he too had had a lucky escape: if he had touched the bishop he probably would have been hanged for it. But there was something about Waleran’s delicacy, his preciousness, that William hated.

They went into Father’s chamber, the room where William had raped Aliena. He remembered that scene every time he was here: her lush white body, the fear on her face, the way she had screamed, the twisted expression on her little brother’s face as he had been forced to look on, and then—William’s masterstroke—the way he had let Walter enjoy her afterward. He wished he had kept her here, a prisoner, so that he could have her anytime he wanted.

He had thought about her obsessively ever since. He had even tried to track her down. A verderer had been caught trying to sell William’s war-horse in Shiring, and had confessed, under torture, that he had stolen it from a girl answering to the description of Aliena. William had learned from the Winchester jailer that she had visited her father before he died. And his friend Mistress Kate, the owner of a brothel he frequented, had told him she had offered Aliena a place in her house. But the trail had petered out. “Don’t let her prey on your mind, Willy-boy,” Kate had said sympathetically. “You want big tits and long hair? We’ve got it. Take Betty and Millie together, tonight, four big breasts all to yourself, why don’t you?” But Betty and Millie had not been innocent, and white-skinned, and frightened half to death; and they had not pleased him. In fact, he had not achieved real satisfaction with a woman since that night with Aliena here in the earl’s chamber.

He put the thought of her out of his mind. Bishop Waleran was speaking to Mother. “I suppose you know that the prior of Kingsbridge has taken possession of your quarry?”

They did not know. William was astonished, and Mother was furious. “What?” she said. “How?”

“Apparently your men-at-arms succeeded in turning away the quarry men, but the next day when they woke up they found the quarry overrun with monks singing hymns, and they were afraid to lay hands on men of God. Prior Philip then hired your quarrymen, and now they’re all working together in perfect harmony. I’m surprised the men-at-arms didn’t come back to you to report.”

“Where are they, the cowards?” Mother screeched. She was red in the face. “I’ll see to them—I’ll make them cut off their own balls—”

“I see why they didn’t come back,” Waleran said.

“Never mind the men-at-arms,” Father said. “They’re just soldiers. That sly prior is the one responsible. I never imagined he could pull a trick like this. He’s outwitted us, that’s all.”

“Exactly,” said Waleran. “For all his air of saintly innocence, he’s got the cunning of a house rat.”

William thought that Waleran, too, was like a rat, a black one with a pointed snout and sleek black hair, sitting in a corner with a crust in its paws, darting wary glances around the room as it nibbled its dinner. Why was he interested in who occupied the quarry? He was as cunning as Prior Philip: he, too, was plotting something.

Mother said: “We can’t let him get away with this. The Hamleighs must not be seen to be defeated. That prior must be humiliated.”

Father was not so sure. “It’s only a quarry,” he said. “And the king did—”

“It’s not just the quarry, it’s the family’s honor,” Mother interrupted. “Never mind what the king said.”

William agreed with Mother. Philip of Kingsbridge had defied the Hamleighs, and he had to be crushed. If people were not afraid of you, you had nothing. But he did not see what the problem was. “Why don’t we go in with some men and just throw the prior’s quarrymen out?”

Father shook his head. “It’s one thing to obstruct the king’s wishes passively, as we did by working the quarry ourselves; but quite another to send armed men to expel workmen who are there by express permission of the king. I could lose the earldom for that.”

William reluctantly saw his point of view. Father was always cautious, but he was usually justified.

Bishop Waleran said: “I have a suggestion.” William had felt sure he had something up his embroidered black sleeve. “I believe this cathedral should not be built at Kingsbridge.”

William was mystified by this remark. He did not see its relevance. Nor did Father. But Mother’s eyes widened, she stopped scratching her face for a moment, and she said thoughtfully: “That’s an interesting idea.”

“In the old days most cathedrals were in villages such as Kingsbridge,” Waleran went on. “Many of them were moved to towns sixty or seventy years ago, during the time of the first King William. Kingsbridge is a small village in the middle of nowhere. There’s nothing there but a run-down monastery that isn’t rich enough to maintain a cathedral, let alone build one.”

Mother said: “And where wouldyouwish it built?”

“Shiring,” said Waleran. “It’s a big town—the population must be a thousand or more—and it has a market and an annual fleece fair. And it’s on a main road. Shiring makes sense. And if we both campaign for it—the bishop and the earl united—we could push it through.”

Father said: “But if the cathedral were at Shiring, the Kingsbridge monks would not be able to look after it.”

“That’s thepoint,”Mother said impatiently. “Without the cathedral, Kingsbridge would be nothing, the priory would sink back into obscurity, and Philip would once again be a nonentity, which is what he deserves.”

“So who would look after the new cathedral?” Father persisted.